Little Labor: How Union Decline is Changing the American Landscape

During the heyday of collective bargaining in United States, unions helped pattern pay and benefit packages among nonunion workers, as employers matched union contracts to forestall organizing drives and maintain a competitive workforce. Politicians, Democrats especially, depended on organized labor's support during elections and consulted closely with labor leaders when devising policy in office. The late 1970s and 1980s proved especially brutal for organized labor, with unionization rates halving during the period. Organized labor's penetration was especially deep in core manufacturing industries. Unions bolster workers' clout in confrontations with employers, historically winning those higher wages, better benefits, and greater workplace protections than might be offered otherwise. If labor can organize recent immigrants, unions might once again reclaim a powerful position in the economic landscape. Strikes represent unions' most potent weapon in confrontations with employers, and this weapon used to be a regular feature of America's industrial landscape, affecting millions of workers each year.